Word of Salvation – Vol.29 No.25 –July 1984

 

Bridge Over A Troubled Gap

 

Sermon by Rev. A. I. DeGraaf v.d.m. on 1Peter 5:1-6

Scripture Reading: Malachi 4; 1Peter 5

Suggested Hymns: BoW 5; P/H. 150; BoW 13; P/H. 417:1,2,3; 493

 

In one of the last words of the Old Testament, the prophet MALACHI makes a remarkable promise: The Coming Messiah, he says, will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.

So the people had trouble with the generation gap then, too.  Older people shaking their heads saying: “What’s gotten into the young people nowadays?  They go their own ways and sing their own songs and they don’t talk to us”.  And young people, shrugging their shoulders saying: “These ‘Oldies’, they’re all phoney, man, phoney!  Who are they to tell us what to do?  Look at the rotten world they left to us and listen to the dreary stuff they sing.  They don’t understand us; they don’t even WANT to understand us.”

We may have thought that our age of rapid changes caused this thing, that in olden days young and old were close together.  Well, up to a point that is true: youngsters learned their trade from Dad, and their religion in the home.  And society frowned on children going off on their own.  Even your marriage partner was picked for you by fathers and uncles.

Grey heads then were wise heads.
The way Dad had learned things and the way Mum ran the home was going to be the same as the next generation would do these things.

That is, of course, different now: technology changes things so fast that what knowledge the older generation has picked up is no good to the young; or at least must be vastly modified.

And our society will have to undergo drastic changes if it shall keep everybody working and eating.

We are in the midst of such a change right now and in an age of change that it helps when you are young.  It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks.  As a minister I may eventually still pick up how to work with a word processor but getting good at a computer I will have to leave to my children and who knows what my grandchildren will have to learn?

Yet a few years ago one of the most technological countries in the world, the leader in science and development, the United States, picked itself a seventy-year old as President and he seems to be doing pretty well.  And the other world superpower replaced a 75 year old president with a 68 year old man and when he died they chose another senior citizen; and they, too, are going through a technology revolution.

And in Malachi’s days when things looked so stable they also had that GENERATION GAP.

Our text talks about ELDERS, LEADERS, people who were to GOVERN and – on the other side – about people called to SUBMIT to authority.  This is a difficult topic in a sinful world.

We all agree we need governments but whenever people have problems whom do they blame?  The government..!

Where do they go for their demonstrations and protests?  To Parliament House..!

In a sinful world, power corrupts and bearers of authority are open to attack.  Peter in our text mentions some of these dangers that even threaten elders in the church:

Some do their work of leadership UNDER COMPULSION, just because it’s a job and so there is no joy in it; they will not work harder than strictly necessary and sneak out of things whenever they can.

There is a lot of that about, isn’t there?  And so youngsters lose their respect.  How else can it be?

Some others do their work of leadership FOR GAIN AND PROFIT, FOR LURKS AND PERKS, and we only have to remember the travel allowance scandals in Canberra to see how close to home that is!

There was a time that nobody in his right mind would choose the Christian ministry to get rich, but it is possible that people are more interested in the monthly salary cheque than in the job itself.  And so youngsters lose their respect.
How else can it be?

And then there are the leaders who become TYRANTS, whom power corrupts to boost their big egos: who like manipulating people, and given enough power, would hurt and kill.

Yes, this sorry spectacle we have also seen in the church: lording it over God’s people, making little empires of our own: Here I come!  Out of the way, you little termite!
Such power-hungry bosses we see in the Union leadership: but also in Canberra; and we see them – alas! –  at times also in the church.

But we have a free press now, we have the media which point their nosey lenses at such people and we see what they’re up to.  How can we NOT lose respect?

It is no wonder that in our day and age we see a lot of rebellion in the younger generation.  With bad examples all around of people misusing power for self, for gain; just a job?  In our churches we choose office bearers every year.  Elders and deacons, people to have leadership among us.

And now we all listen to the Word of God as spoken on the subject by SIMON PETER.

Peter?

What kind of authority on this point is HE, I ask you?  Some think he was the first Pope and surely he tried often enough to PLAY pope!  The others always had to dance to his tune!  Yes, true, he long thought he was the best… the natural ruler!

But have you seen which word is prominent in this text written by this fisherman?  It is the word SHEPHERD and the related word: FLOCK.  And don’t you think he did that because he REMEMBERED as he wrote these words, that last discussion with the Lord Jesus at the Lake of Galilee, at that breakfast with the risen Lord Jesus?

Then the Lord, three times, asked that painful question: Simon… you who ran away and denied me three times, Simon, is it true that you love Me?
How can he ever forget?
Forget his tears and that look of his Lord?
Forget also what he said, HAD to say:
“LORD, YOU know all things, YOU know that I love you?”

Yes, little Pope Peter had found out the hard way what can happen if you do not HUMBLE yourself under the mighty hand of God.

He had found out where we can end up when we swing the little sword of our own goodness and think little of the others and big of ourselves.  But now, for all his being an apostle, he simply calls himself: “Your fellow elder”.

That is now good enough for Peter, to be the fellow elder of guys like you and me… and the elders and deacons in this church.
That’s different from calling himself Pope or letting others call him that; even though from time to time there have been humble men in that unbiblical position.

He calls himself something different, too:
He says: I am a witness to the sufferings of Christ.

Now, he was that in a special way and therefore called to be an apostle.
He was there when it happened.
And when the risen Christ appeared he was there, too.

Mind you! – when the crunch came he ran away; and when Jesus arose he dismissed the story of the women telling of it as “idle chatter”.

In fact he was not only a witness of the suffering of Jesus, but HE WAS AMONG THE WORST OF THOSE WHO MADE JESUS SUFFER.
He was as bad a one to make Christ hurt as those that drove the nails and swung the whip.

Brothers and sisters, with what trembling voice can Peter, and you and I, call ourselves witnesses to the sufferings of Christ?

Wider than any generation gap, deeper than any abyss of misunderstanding and hatred gaped that yawning chasm between a holy God and black-hearted rebels like you and me; and Jesus came to bridge that gap.

No one else could.
He had to do it – all alone.

And of that suffering and perfect obedience of Jesus even the greatest apostle can be but a witness.
One who looks on and says: Lord have mercy.  I did this to you.

Peter, the one who ran away, He a witness?
But this is the only kind of witnesses Calvary can ever have.
For there is no Saviour but Jesus, and even the most talented even the most gifted leader, among God’s people can but confess: I live by His grace:

My only Comfort is that He, alone and fully, paid the price for my sins and set me free from the tyranny of the devil and made my life fit for God’s service again.

And therefore in His Kingdom only he can be great who made himself small.
Who humbled himself under the mighty hand of God.
Only he can be an office bearer in the church of Jesus, who knows himself a forgiven sinner; who has no song but the song of Him who loved to the end, and then said to one so unworthy: “YOU… feed my sheep!”

The One Chief Shepherd who one Day will appear and we all will see Him.
APPEAR He will, to take all His little ones into His arms.
And therefore, when this same Peter THEN says to the younger ones: “SUBMIT to the elders, and GIVE RESPECT to the older ones”, he does not say this as a little pope grabbing power for himself and his clan, but it is an invitation to COME AND JOIN THAT WE TOGETHER CAN SUBMIT TO GOD.

Rebellion makes you lonely..!
But when we all together do what God says and respect the way HE built life, then your life will be long in this land the Lord God is giving you.

The fifth commandment is a commandment with a promise.
Listen how he puts it:
“Clothe yourselves with humility.”

Again, that is the expression of a man who REMEMBERS something.  He remembers how his Master, the LORD OF GLORY in that dark night before going to the cross, while his followers were quarrelling about seniority (Who is MOST among us s?) stood up from the table and took off his coat and instead clothed Himself with the slave’s towel to go and wash the feet – the dirty feet – of his faithless friends.

When Jesus did that it was Peter who had trouble with it.
“WHAT?” he had cried out?  “YOU wash MY feet?”
“I won’t have none of it!”
“I won’t have you turn our social order upside down like that!”

This “leader” that Peter thought he was, found Jesus’ action most embarrassing.
How can a leader lose face like that?

But now he had learned his lesson.
He who looks upon the sufferings of Jesus and knows that this alone could get things right between him or her and God; he who waits for the Chief Shepherd with that kind of longing, that kind of joy and sorrow at the same time, knows that the Lord indeed DID turn upside down the social structures of the world.

In His book leadership is service.

The world is full of unwilling leaders, uninterested in those they’re supposed to be responsible for.
The world is full of money-grabbing – not shepherds but – sheepshearers who’re in it to just fatten themselves,
The world is full of ego-bloated tyrants and overlords.
And therefore the world is full of rebelling youngsters who have seen it all and give no allegiance to any of these leaders; only to the idols who sing their songs, as if these too weren’t in it for a buck!  But in that world Jesus calls his people TO BE DIFFERENT.

As Malachi said: HE has a way, He IS the Way, to bridge the gap
between leaders and followers
between old and young.

Still today Jesus does that for those who truly get to know Him.  Then we learn to care for each other because HE cares for us.  Serving Him in an office is not: at last to get onto the cushion of glory, but: to be called to serve, to point away from oneself to Him Who is The Shepherd Himself; the One Saviour by Whom alone fallen men can have – completely – peace with God for ever.

It is: to use the gifts you have to bring people to Him, or BACK to Him; to be an example to the flock, especially in humility.

It is so beautiful that, after having talked to the elders, and then having talked to the young ones, Peter uses this word: TOGETHER, together humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God so HE can be the one who exalts you TOGETHER; TOGETHER to sing hymns to the glory of the God Who gave His only Son;
TOGETHER, office bearer and youngster, to be flock of the Good Shepherd, together.
An example to the flock is one who walks up in front, but he, too, is a humble follower walking in the footsteps of the Foot-washer.

We do not have to prove ourselves; not as teenagers and not as elders.
All we need to do is look – and make each other look – towards Him Who suffered alone, Who obeyed alone, Who overcame alone, and will come again to give to such little people as we are, a crown that will never fade away.

Servants of each other, each with the gifts Christ in His bounty gave us, as His Spirit came on old and young, upon all flesh; fellow- servants in a world that must see Him, and know Him, if it is to live.

As an old school-mate of mine, Fred Kaan, now serving in a Congregational Church in England, once wrote in a hymn:

“When any person is to Christ united,
His past is over, life is re-created.
How shall he live, as man to man related?
LOVE will dictate it.

 Man, reconciled to God and those around Him,
enters the freedom of his new surroundings.
By love constrained, he gives himself to others,
sees them as brothers.

 In the new order man is called to service,
Sent in the Name of Him Whose nature love is,
bound to convey to men by rhyme and reason:
JESUS IS RISEN!”

Amen.